The Map of Knowledge - How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found: A History in Seven Cities by Violet Moller (UK edition, paperback) - 9781509829620

Review QuoteSuperb . . . Ambitious but concise, deeply researched but elegantly written, and very entertaining, The Map of Knowledge is popular intellectual history at its bestReview QuoteA sumptuous, glittering, endlessly fascinating book, written with passion, verve and humour.Review QuoteAs the historian Violet Moller reveals in her expansive book, the passage of ideas from antiquity through the Middle Ages and beyond was fraught with obstacles . . . The story she tells is a fascinating one.Review QuoteIf, say, the streets of 10th-century Baghdad seem a little remote, Moller's travelogue of ideas brings such places vividly to life - and explains how the modern world came into being along the way.Review QuoteWhat Moller does . . . is to imagine vivid scenes and scenarios and to populate them with colourful historical figures thinking big, bold, beautiful ideas.Review QuoteMoller's brings the wonders of the medieval Muslim empires vividly to life.Review QuoteEuclid’s Elements is the seed from which my subject of mathematics grew. Thanks to Violet Moller’s fascinating and meticulous account I’ve had a glimpse of just how this text, together with works by Ptolemy and Galen, blossomed as they wound their way through the centuries and the seven cities at the heart of her book. What an adventure.Review QuoteThe Map of Knowledge is extremely important and insightful. It shines a light on how we know what we know about antiquity and the people and cultures we have to thank for the preservation and interpretation of ancient wisdom. We need much more of this!Review QuoteA lovely debut from a gifted young author. Violet Moller brings to life the ways in which knowledge reached us from antiquity to the present day in a book that is as delightful as it is readableReview QuoteAn epic treasure hunt into the highways and byways of stored knowledge across faiths and continents.Review QuoteAn exceptionally bold and important bookReview QuoteThe Map of Knowledge is an endlessly fascinating book, rich in detail, capacious and humane in vision.Review QuoteThe author’s prose runs smoothly and she wears her considerable learning lightly. Beautifully illustrated, bound and set, this is a concise, timely and important book—and popular history at its best.Review QuoteFascinatingReview QuoteAfter the fall of Rome, the libraries of the West were burned by marauding Goths and Huns, and the Greek and Roman classics survived only in the Islamic world. Violet Moller’s wonderful The Map of Knowledge . . . tells the story of how that knowledge was first preserved, then returned to Europe through Arabic translations made in cities such as Baghdad, Palermo, Toledo and Cordoba. It is a beautifully written and researched work of intellectual archaeology.A vibrant an